“Improving Symptoms and Quality of Life in Chronic Heart Failure”

Please note: All research in progress seminars are off-the-record. Any information about methodology and/or results is embargoed until publication.

*Please note the irregular time for this seminar*

Abstract

David Bekelman, MD, MPH is a visiting lecturer at Stanford University and the VA Palo Alto Health Care System.  He is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Nursing at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.  Dr. Bekelman is a board-certified internist, psychiatrist, and palliative care specialist. In this talk, he will present his research related to measuring and improving quality of life, testing novel health care delivery interventions, and behavioral clinical trials.  He will describe his ongoing research that is examining ways to integrate palliative and psychosocial care into the primary care setting.  These interventions expand the “reach” of palliative care by combining training of nurses and social workers in basic palliative care with case review by palliative care specialists.  He will also discuss how his team has managed challenges in recruiting ill patients and their family caregivers into research, coordinating care, and integrating specialist care in the patient-centered medical home.

Abstract

Human rights groups have only two assets: people and information.  Learn about Benetech’s decade of putting information technology tools into the hands of human rights activists, with the goal of making these two assets more effective in advancing the global cause of human rights.   

Speaker bio

Jim Fruchterman is the founder and CEO of Benetech, a Silicon Valley nonprofit technology company that develops software applications to address unmet needs of users in the social sector. He is the recipient of numerous awards recognizing his work as a pioneering social entrepreneur, including the MacArthur Fellowship, Caltech’s Distinguished Alumni Award, the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and the Migel Medal—the highest honor in the blindness field—from the American Foundation for the Blind. Since its founding in 1989, Benetech has touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Its tools and services have transformed the ways in which people with disabilities access printed information, at-risk human rights defenders safely document abuse, and environmental practitioners succeed in their efforts to protect species and ecosystems. Through his work with Benetech and as a trailblazer in the field of social entrepreneurship, Jim continues to advance his vision of a world in which the benefits of technology reach all of humanity, not just the wealthiest and most able five percent.

How has the May 2014 coup in Thailand affected the country’s foreign policy? Has the junta realigned Thailand toward China and away from the US?  Some Western governments reacted to the coup by criticizing the military government of prime minister cum army general General Prayuth Chan-o-cha and subjecting it to downgrades and penalties. Washington bluntly called on the junta to return power to the Thai people. In reply, hoping to lessen the effects of Western pressure, Prayuth tried to diversify Thailand’s links and options in foreign affairs, including strengthening relations with nearby China, and with Myanmar, Cambodia, and Japan.

A January 2015 visit to Bangkok by US assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs Daniel R. Russel did not improve US-Thai relations. When Russel called on the junta to lift marshal law, the junta told him to mind his own business. Yet president Obama has not revoked Thailand’s status as Washington’s “major non-NATO treaty ally” nor has Prayuth aligned his country fully with Beijing. Pavin will sketch the changing contours of these among other relationships and relate their tenor and prospects to the political crisis that continues to unfold in Thailand.

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Co-sponsored by the Japan Program

Prof. Booth will assess the socioeconomic consequences of Japanese colonialism in Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria from 1910 to 1945. She will compare Japan’s policies with those implemented by other colonial powers in South and Southeast Asia. In particular she will address the writings of what has been termed the “Stanford School”—an influential group of scholars who published widely on Japanese colonial policies over the last fifty years. Their work has been used to support the argument that Japanese rule was more developmental than that of other colonial powers, and that it laid the foundations for the stellar economic performance of Taiwan and the Republic of Korea in the decades after 1950. She will challenge these conclusions by comparing economic and social indicators for Korea, Taiwan, and Manchuria with those from other Asian colonies and also from Thailand. While Japan’s colonies, especially Taiwan, do score well on some indicators, they do less well on others. The notion that Japanese rule was exceptionally “developmental” does not merit support.

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